Justin Taylor, my editor at Crossway, points out many people who use the word “hypocrisy” do not know what it actually means. It isn’t not practicing what you preach, but not believing what you say you do. [Read more...]

You thought it was complicated using “non-sexist” pronouns, avoiding the generic “he” for “he or she” or using “they” as a non-gendered singular? Consider the travails of a binary language in a world of 58 genders. [Read more...]

The Democrats’ big new issue is “income inequality.” What they are referring to is that wealthier people are benefiting more from the current economic growth than those with lower incomes and that there is a growing economic gap between the two. The Democrats want to address this with such policies as raising the minimum wage. But surely adopting those policies, which might be worth doing, would do little to make incomes “equal,” would it?

If the problem is “income inequality,” asks Kathleen Parker, is the solution “income equality”? Is the idea really to work towards everyone having the same income? If that were to happen, would that be a good thing? [Read more...]

In the context of a discussion about “income inequality” (we’ll discuss that later), Kathleen Parker talks about political rhetoric and the different styles of each party. Republicans, she says, use “dog whistles,” using loaded terms (big government! tax-and-spend! anti-family!) to summon the true believers. Democrats use “smiley faces” to cover up unpleasant truths with positive emotions (“reproductive freedom” for late-term abortions).

Those are my examples. What are some others on both sides? [Read more...]

A court in Argentina ruled that an organgutan is a “non-human person,” and so is entitled to certain rights, including the right to freedom, meaning that the animal must be released from the zoo. (So an unborn child is a human being, but not a person, while an organgutan is not a human being but is a person.) [Read more...]